


Just Outside Ketterdam

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Flirting, Fluff, Jesper & Wylan being Jesper&Wylan, Just two boys on a weekend away, Kittens, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27545935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: After several very busy months, Jesper and Wylan decide to take a trip away from the city and spend time just being together.Jesper, Wylan, and plotless sweet antics!
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	1. A Long-Expected Holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DanaWillowFeather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanaWillowFeather/gifts).



> I was going to do a oneshot, but this story sort of... grew. I'm estimating about 3 chapters.
> 
> Also: happy birthday, Dana!

Immediately after the final Council vote concluded on Friday, before the stern thwack of the gavel had faded from the room, Wylan Van Eck was already halfway to the cloakroom. He was the youngest by nearly twenty years, but he wasn’t showing off the spryness of youth. No, he just badly needed his coat and hat. He pulled on the coat as he headed for the door.  
  
The Council Chambers were not unpleasant. Indeed, if one must conduct the business of government, this was a fine place in which to do so! Grand, but modern, heated and tastefully decorated. It was a beautiful place in which Wylan all too often heard hideous arguments--but that’s not what he needed to think about today! No, he could leave knowing he had done his best. He and Jesper had spent hours going over their best arguments.  
  
Wylan hopped down the steps with a spring in his step despite the drizzle. It was early spring Ketterdam, of course there was a drizzle. Early spring! He almost couldn’t believe it had been a whole year since he and Marya returned home to Geldstraat, since Jesper moved in. _Jesper._ Ghezen’s hand, a year with the most brilliant, beautiful man in Kerch!  
  
There had been ups and downs, of course. There had been relapses and recoveries, bad nights. Wylan had gotten sick. Jesper had gone back to the tables. Marya had forgotten herself. But every time they returned to one another.  
  
The past months had been especially challenging. Now that Wylan felt his feet under him with the business of Kerch, he had begun to spin a few ideas. Public schools in the lower districts, even the Barrel, and training programs in trades. Government-run hospitals. Better-funded foundlings’ homes. A school for Grisha at the university--all right, that was a stretch, but the others should be possible. Wylan was the dreamer. Jesper, who understood more of the world, helped build the framework for those dreams. Marya knew the ways of Ketterdam high society and guided their arguments in a way the Council would find persuasive. When Inej was in town, she examined their plans for likeliest areas of exploitation and helped them build in failsafes.  
  
It had been good work, but it had been exhausting work. Wylan couldn’t remember the last time he and Jesper had an evening to themselves, just a date for the two of them, and Jesper was reaching his limits.  
  
“I’m home!” Wylan announced, hanging his coat.  
  
He was facing the coatrack when strong arms closed around him.  
  
“Finally!” Jesper said. Despite a bit of growth the past year, Wylan was still a good bit shorter. Jesper kissed his ear. “You’re late, Councilman Van Eck.”  
  
“Oh, I am?” Wylan asked.  
  
“Mmhmm. I was so sad without you, Wy. I was forlorn.”  
  
“You were, huh?”  
  
“More than forlorn. I was five-lorn.”  
  
Wylan laughed.  
  
“I can’t believe you’re laughing at my pain. You cruel, cruel man.”  
  
Which, of course, only made him laugh harder.  
  
Jesper spun Wylan around and kissed him, which, on top of his giggles, left him dizzily breathless.  
  
“Y’know,” he murmured, leaning against Jesper, “you could do anything with me right now. Shame, really… since we need to leave in an hour.”  
  
“Cruel!” Jesper repeated.  
  
Wylan leaned up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He didn’t have to, he wasn’t _that_ short. But he did anyway.  
  
They were already packed for their trip. Wylan had enough time to sit with Marya, embrace her, double and triple and quadruple check that she was sure she would be all right on her own, until finally she told him that he wasn’t too big to spank. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t follow through. 80% sure--well, 75%, he was at least 70% sure she wasn’t being literal--but just in case he gave her one final hug, shrugged on his still-damp coat, and followed Jesper out the door.  
  
“Marya’s going to be fine,” Jesper promised as Wylan looked over his shoulder for the third time.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Wylan, you’re meant to be focused on _me_ .”  
  
And didn’t he want to be! Wylan pressed a kiss to Jesper’s fingers and glanced once more over his shoulders.  
  
The past months had been not enough Jesper time for Wylan, not enough Wylan time for Jesper, and too much Council time for both of them.  
  
A holiday was needed.  
  


* * *

  
The last time Jesper saw the Hendriks lake house, it was dark and they were sneaking in to kidnap a very pregnant Alys Van Eck. Under those circumstances, the lake house was like another part of the Barrel. It smelled nicer and the distance to the next building was far greater, but it was just one more place to case with a household guard instead of stadwatch to subdue.  
  
Seeing it in watery sunlight, he whistled, impressed. They had left the drizzle behind and a few bright rays broke through the cloud cover.  
  
“A guy with a place like this only needs one thing,” he said, slinging an arm around Wylan’s shoulders.  
  
“Oh?” Wylan asked. The cold sunlight caught on the fluttering edges of his curls, and he was smiling. “What’s that?”  
  
“A husband.”  
  
Wylan chuckled the breathless way he did when he failed to suppress a blush.  
  
“Come on, Van Eck, be a good host and show me around!”  
  
“Jes, we need to take our things inside first. I don’t like the looks of those clouds.”  
  
Jesper rolled his eyes. “Boring,” he teased.  
  
They met two members of the household guard at the door to exchange formalities. Neither of the boys expected to need much protecting--both because Jesper was fearsome and unbeatable (in his own opinion), and because they were on the skirt-edge of nowhere. But Wylan _was_ a Councilman, even when on holiday. So the guards were along just in case.  
  
The building inside was impressive. While the Van Eck mansion on the Geldstraat kept up with the latest modern technology, the lake house was more like a time capsule. The decoration was sumptuous and dramatic, with surprisingly bloody paintings of hunts on the walls. There was a sitting room with an ancient crossbow anging over a fireplace.  
  
Wylan shook his head at the paintings. “I always forget about those.”  
  
“You can take them down,” Jesper pointed out. “It’s your house.”  
  
“It’s not, it’s Mama’s. It was built by my seven-times-great-grandfather as a hunting lodge. Of course, Ketterdam was smaller in those days, just a port really, and this was a greater distance away,” Wylan explained as he led Jesper upstairs.  
  
“Seven-times-great, huh? Wait, didn’t you say that old portrait was your great-grandfather? The one who started the Van Eck empire?”  
  
“Martin Van Eck, my great-great-grandfather, that’s the portrait in the study.”  
  
Not any more it wasn’t. Wylan had replaced it with a map--ignoring Jesper’s idea of a saucy painting. No matter how many times he offered to sit for such an artistic masterpiece, Wylan only refused. Well, he didn’t _only_ refuse. He refused and turned a stunning shade of red.  
  
“So… your mama’s family was richer than your papa’s. Jan Van Eck married for wealth.”  
  
“Oh--no. Not exactly. Here we are!”  
  
The bedroom looked like something out of a novel. (One with a knight and a maiden in distress, or possibly a gold-hearted country girl who came to work for a wealthy family and made a good life through her determination and naturally cheerful demeanor.) The bed was dark, solid wood and the trunk at its foot looked built to withstand a siege. Wylan threw open the curtains over a wide window to spill buckets of light over the writing desk and the furs lain across the floor. A fireplace in the corner promised warmth for anyone not lucky enough to have a sharpshooter to hold them.  
  
“Your seven-times-great grandfather… he liked killing things, huh?”  
  
Wylan shrugged. He opened the chest and, to Jesper’s disappointment, withdrew linens. How dull! Necessary, but still dull.  
  
“Hendriks men hunt,” he said. “Help me with this.”  
  
Jesper took one side of the bed, Wylan the other, and together they stretched the sheet tight and tucked in the edges. Jesper was itching to do some exploring, but made himself stay with Wylan and his dull, necessary chores.  
  
“Anyway, my father didn’t marry Mama for her money. The Hendrikses were erfheeren back in the old days. Noblemen. They held on well enough in the shift, but they always had more… well, the Van Eck money was newer.”  
  
Just how much of a family history did Wylan have to learn? Jesper was impressed that he did all that without notes. He was a decent enough student if he understood the first time, but when he needed to revisit a concept, that was when Jesper got into trouble. It was like his mind decided it had seen something before, so why were they looking again? It wanted something _new_ . Wylan’s ability to recount so much without a reference just reminded Jesper how clever he was.  
  
“I have an uncle back in the Wandering Isle who raises sheep,” Jesper offered. “Took over my granda’s farm.”  
  
“I didn’t know you’d had a--”  
  
“Wylan, darling, sunshine of my life, I love you but sometimes I can’t stand your manners. No one’s interested in a sheep farm.”  
  
“Well, I don’t know about raising sheep and I like to learn new things. But,” Wylan said, sympathetic, “I know. All this family history is dull.” He fingered the heavy curtains tied to the bed’s high posts. “Just think of the new history…”  
  
He couldn’t say it. Jesper wasn’t surprised; it was hardly the first cheesy flirtation to tie Wylan’s tongue into knots. He laughed, anyway.  
  
“Plenty of time for _that_ later. Come on! You promised me a tour. Show me around or when we get back to Ketterdam I shall have to tell Marya you were rude. Utterly unbefitting the seven-times-great grandson of a… what was that thing called?”  
  
Wylan laughed. He grabbed Jesper’s hand and led him outside.  
  


* * *

Wylan knew the lake house well enough. His mother used to bring him here on visits when he was a child. Now that Marya was in his life again, those memories were returning. They were vague, but they had feeling to them.  
  
The tour he gave Jesper might not have been the most inspiring as he tried to leave out anything too dull.  
  
“The library,” he said. There was no point trying to avoid the room: he knew it was here. “There’s an amazing stained glass window on the western-facing wall.”  
  
“What are these doing here?!” Jesper asked. He dragged a chair over to reach the sabers over the doorway. “Saints, this looks real! Were your great-great-whatever-folks worried about an invasion?”

“Or a rebellion,” Wylan said. 

Jesper hopped off the chair, saber in hand. He gave it a couple of slashes through the air. There was a sort of play in Jesper that Wylan admired. He had always been such a serious boy that it almost startled him to encounter the sheer joy Jesper often radiated, the way he looked for fun around every corner.

“Uprisings from the lower classes, eh? Those peasants won’t lay a finger on you. Except me, I’ll lay all the fingers on you.”

Wylan blushed. “Jesper! You can’t—you can’t just call people peasants!”

“In fairness, I implied I was also a peasant,” he pointed out. 

That was true, but left Wylan just as embarrassed. He mumbled something incoherent and put the chair back by the table.

Jesper brought the saber with him as they explored the rest of the lake house, slashing at shadows in the parlor, rattling the saber at budding leaves in the courtyard, parrying the vicious assault from dust bunnies in the parlor.

“Oh!” Jesper grinned hugely and looked from a painting to Wylan and back. “It’s yours, Wy, may I…?”  
  
Wylan needed a moment to catch up to Jesper’s thinking. When he did, he grinned and nodded. Finally Jesper got to put his saber to use, shredding a painting of Jan and Alys. Whether it was put there by Jan as a slap in the face to Marya and Wylan or by Alys with good intentions, it was the perfect target practice for Sir Jesper the Enthusiastic.  
  
“I’m keeping this thing,” he announced when he was through. Wylan would have given the world for that smile. What was one little saber?  
  
When they left the house, the wind was bracing cold. Maybe it was a little early in the year for a lake house holiday, certainly too early to swim, but that didn’t matter. It was about their time together, however that time was spent.  
  
“There’s a blackberry patch a little ways up this stream, at least, there used to be. Mama used to let me pick them.”  
  
He remembered once putting a berry into his mouth and practically swallowing his cheeks it was so sour! He must have been very young, because he started to cry. What else was a little thing to do when he reached for a sweet, juicy berry and got that tart sting instead?! It was the worst, most horrible thing in the whole world! His mama made him spit it out, then gave him water to drink and brushed the tears off his face with her thumbs. That was the risk, she said, in berries. She scanned the patch, then plucked a perfect, fat berry and offered it to him. This was the reward.  
  
It was too early in the year for blackberries now, but maybe they could come back in a few months, when the water was better for swimming and the blackberries were ripe.  
  
Jesper, unaware of Wylan’s silent musings, lunged at a shadow and stabbed his saber into the leaves. It wasn’t sharp. The painting’s canvas had been taut enough for him to hack it to bits, but the leaves just parted around the blade. Jesper seemed to enjoy himself, though. That was what mattered.  
  
When they found a fallen tree, Jesper asked, “Should we cut it up for firewood?”  
  
“We can,” Wylan said, “I’m pretty sure this is still my land.”  
  
“We should. We really should.”  
  
“What… you just want to show off with an axe, don’t you?”  
  
Jesper shrugged. “Maybe.”  
  
Wylan stretched up to kiss him. “You know you already impress me. But we can see if there’s an axe in the house somewhere.”  
  
“It’s a potential weapon, gorgeous. I’m sure your paranoid ancestors left one somewhere.”  
  
Laughing, Wylan followed Jesper back to the lake house. They found a toolshed easily enough. It was locked up tight, but Jesper had a solution.  
  
“Wylan, look over there!” he said.  
  
Wylan fell for it like a podge, but he still turned back in time to see Jesper pulling iron ore from the fastenings around the lock and spinning them into lockpicks. Neither of them had Kaz or Inej’s skill. It wasn’t a complicated lock, though. They managed it.  
  
The shed was something of a disaster, dim and cobwebby, but Jesper and his saber braved it in search of their axe.  
  
A moment later, Jesper popped his head out again. His eyes were shining--and not just from using his abilities.  
  
“Wy!” he whispered urgently, and motioned Wylan over.  
  
“What’s--”  
  
“Shh!” Jesper put a finger to his lips for emphasis, then motioned again.  
  
Wylan stepped closer. Jesper ushered him into the shed. It was cramped and they had to stand close together--not that Wylan objected! And there, in a dark corner of the shed, was a nest of kittens. They were tiny things, all piled on top of each other in a mess of fur and ears and tails, and one little padded foot sticking up and he couldn’t even tell which it belonged to in all the jumble!  
  
“Aww!” He didn’t mean to coo at them. He couldn’t help it! They were all so… so tiny! They reminded him of his half-sister only furry and not screaming!  
  
They watched the kittens until Jesper had to back away. It was a lot of standing still and just _looking_ for him. Besides, Wylan supposed their mother wouldn’t like a couple of big furless strangers gawking at her babies. Though he caught Jesper sneaking one last peek.  
  


* * *

Wylan was too serious in Ketterdam. Jesper loved how much he genuinely cared about making Kerch better, loved seeing him come home bursting with ideas. The trouble came when Wylan let his dedication go too far. He was great as a budding crusader, Jesper’s sweet prince of a bureaucrat, but he was less great at looking after himself. Sometimes Jesper had to remind himself that Wylan wasn’t shutting out Jesper, he was shutting down his feelings to focus on work.  
  
Out here, work was forgotten. Just for a little while. Work was forgotten and Jesper had Wylan’s full attention, a fact that encouraged his antics. It made him feel spun, dizzy and warm in the best way.  
  
“You’ve never chopped wood, have you?”  
  
Wylan shook his head.  
  
“Right. Watch and learn, merchling, and don’t get caught on the blade.”  
  
Wylan actually took a step back and Jesper stifled a grin.  
  
“Just be careful,” he said. “There’s not a Healer for miles if anything… happens.”  
  
“Nothing will happen,” Jesper promised.  
  
He swung the axe at the base of a smaller branch. The tree had been a perfect opportunity; it was too recently fallen for much life to have sprung up around it. His ma said those trees weren’t to be touched unless it was necessary, and when he was small, Jesper had believed there were spirits in the fallen trees like the fae creatures in Da’s stories. When he was nine and his da said a bad winter was coming, and took an axe to the roots of a fallen tree, Jesper had warned him not to. Ma told him spirits lived there. Of course, Colm eventually got the truth out of Jesper: no, Ma hadn’t explicitly said that there were spirits, but she did warn Jesper against cutting into trees that had new life springing up around them.  
  
Jesper understood better now what his ma meant. His training with his powers helped him see the world not as push and pull, but cyclical and balanced. When she said not to cut into those trees like the way Colm did that autumn, she meant because they were already a central part of the ecosystem. She didn’t mean there were spirits--and no fae beings had come for revenge that winter. (Though Jesper left a saucer of milk outside, just in case.)  
  
Even though this tree was recently fallen, Jesper didn’t want to hack it all to pieces. Most of it still had a place here--and the rest had a place keeping them warm in the house!  
  
“Do you want to try?” he asked, offering the axe to Wylan.  
  
Wylan hesitated. Maybe it was the sharp, shiny thing. Maybe it was the hungry look he was giving Jesper right now. Jesper couldn’t fault Wylan; he knew his boyfriend was stronger than he looked, but there were times Jesper wanted to interrupt Wylan midway through rehearsing his arguments for the Council to… well, that was a matter for later.  
  
Wylan took the axe carefully. He settled his grip, raised the axe. He lowered it gently.  
  
“Could you step back?”  
  
“You’re not going to hit me.”  
  
“Jes, please?”  
  
Jesper trusted Wylan, but took a step back, anyway.  
  
Wylan raised the axe and brought it down hard into the branch. His next strike went wide, landing a good five inches lower on the branch, and it took several more whacks before the branch broke free. When Jesper came closer, he saw Wylan trying to swallow his grin, so he cupped the back of Wylan’s head and tilted his face up.  
  
“Hey. Don’t do that.”  
  
“I know I missed it a lot but--”  
  
“But then you got it. And you didn’t accidentally cut my arm off and that means a lot to me, Wylan, it really really does.”  
  
That got a smile. Jesper smiled back and kissed him.  
  
“I love you so much, Jesper.”  
  
“Mm, but not as much as I love you.”  
  
“Yes I do!”  
  
“Nah. You’re smaller, so you love me shorter than I love you.”  
  
Wylan huffed. He set down the axe and climbed onto the fallen tree. He propped his fists on his hips.  
  
“Well now my love is higher than yours!”  
  
“Quantity over quality?”  
  
Wylan grinned at him.  
  
“C’mon, jump down, we should bring the firewood back before dark.”  
  
Rather than jump, Wylan climbed down carefully. He still slipped, but Jesper caught him before he hit the ground.  
  
“Hey, you,” Jesper murmured, not letting go.  
  
Dreamily, Wylan replied, “Hey, you, too.”  
  
They brought the axe back to the shed, carefully replacing it to avoid disturbing the kittens. Jesper noticed their mama cat still wasn’t back, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be back.  
  


* * *

That night was exactly what Wylan hoped for.  
  
He knew it was a deeply strange scenario. A one-time gang-affiliated sharpshooter and a castoff son who had, just over a year ago, been shivering through Ketterdam’s biting winter, were here in a very well-established family’s lake house.  
  
Wylan shivered as he pulled back the curtain around the bed and dove under the small mountain of covers.  
  
“I can’t believe you,” Jesper teased, wrapping an arm around him.  
  
Wylan snuggled close. “I had to!” he objected. But he would definitely not be drinking anything this late tomorrow. He had learned his lesson on after-dark washroom trips!  
  
“I know--Saints! Your toes are frozen!”  
  
He tried to take his freezing toes away from Jesper, but Jesper brought one of his legs over Wylan’s, refusing to let him.  
  
Once his teeth had stopped chattering, once the ice on his feet began to thaw, Wylan found the words to say, “Thank you for coming away with me. This is perfect.”  
  
“Not as perfect as you.”  
  
“I learned from the best.” He had gotten much better, over the past year, at being someone’s boyfriend. But when he didn’t know what to do, sometimes Wylan imagined what Jesper would do in that moment. He couldn’t always do it, especially the flirtatious things that made him blush, but he tried!  
  
Jesper hummed thoughtfully. He found Wylan’s hand under the covers and brought it up, kissing his fingers.  
  
“You love me,” Wylan said, not entirely sure why those words popped out. He just meant the way Jesper treated him, the way Jesper put his hands on Wylan, it was pure love.  
  
“Yeah,” Jesper agreed. “But I think you love me more.”


	2. Return of the Kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff is really not my area of expertise, so I tried my best and I really hope this chapter works. That said, if I broke tone, please let me know!

The cold woke Jesper. Not regular cold, but an intense, piercing cold that burrowed into his ears and gusted along his skin. He groaned in protest--it was too early to wake up--and reached for Wylan. Instead, he found bare sheets. Jesper burrowed deeper under the covers, now thoroughly displeased. Why was he so cold?    
  
Stupid bed, not having a Wylan in it. That was a failure on the bed’s part, really. Jesper decided to wake up later and determine whether or not to waste time being cross with the bed. For now, sleep.   
  
Sleep eluded him. The more Jesper woke up, the more he processed the sounds from the room. Someone was moving around--presumably the same someone who was noticeably absent from the bed right now--and there was a high-whistling wind. Jesper still wanted to sleep, but the information settling in his brain insisted he do otherwise, until he risked exposing one hand to the cold and reached for the curtains around the bed.   
  
They didn’t have curtains around their bed at home. It was the one luxury the Van Eck mansion denied him, and Jesper now wanted curtains around the bed more than anything. There was something so  _ illicit _ about them. When they drew the curtains last night, he hadn’t been able to resist pulling Wylan close and murmuring, “With this kind of privacy, I could do absolutely anything to you.” Never mind that they had a bedroom at home, with curtains over the windows and a sturdy door. This was an absurd luxury and a tenuous suggestion of privacy, and Jesper wanted it.   
  
Drawing back the curtain now, he realized they provided more than just an illusion of privacy. The air outside had to be ten degrees colder. He noticed that first. Then he noticed Wylan stuffing something up against the window--no, through it. The window had broken and wan lamplight showed--was that snow on the floor?   
  
“Wy?” Jesper asked.   
  
Wylan turned to him, eyes wide and one hand still pressed to the window. “Hey--I didn’t want to wake you.”   
  
Jesper pushed back the covers with half a grumble. Somehow the cold felt even colder as it caught the rest of his body, but he shuffled forward.   
  
“Jes, wait!”   
  
He saw what Wylan meant: glittering shards had been swept aside. Jesper frowned. This wasn’t his usual work, but it wasn’t too complicated. He reached out with his powers and called the glass to him. The pieces trembled at first, then slid into his hands. Jesper shaped them as they arrived, making the sharp-edged shards into a ball. Wylan moved aside for Jesper. He approached the window, tugged the handkerchief out of the jagged gap, and smoothed the glass back over it. The whistling sound lessened and the wind stopped. The room was still biting cold, but already the sharpest part of that edge was dulling. For good measure, Jesper reached for the molecules themselves, putting the slightest of tweaks into them to make the panes stronger.   
  
It was such a small task, fixing a window, but for Jesper it was an accomplishment. A year ago, he hadn’t been able to do anything like this with his zowa abilities. He had barely been able to do anything. Now he had summoned, restored, and strengthened glass. And that was huge.   
  
Wylan knew.   
  
“You’re incredible,” he said, looping his arms around Jesper’s neck and beaming up at him. That glow in his eyes warmed Jesper through--not all the way through, the room was still freezing, but he still appreciated it.   
  
“You’re lucky to have me.”   
  
“I know.” Wylan glanced back to the window and asked, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”   
  
Now that the weather was outside, Jesper could admit that it was eerily beautiful. He could just see the bluish-glowing snow on the ground through the flurries falling past the window. A part of Jesper realized this probably meant their vacation had been extended. Oh, no. Oh, what _ ever _ would they do. Honestly, they couldn’t travel to Ketterdam in this. If only they had a dry, comfortable place to hole up with extra food and firewood!   
  
Turning back to Wylan, Jesper said, “It’s not as beautiful as you.”    
  
But Wylan didn’t look enamored anymore. He looked concerned. When he glanced at his bag, Jesper realized why.    
  
“You’re thinking about those kittens, aren’t you?”   
  
“They’re so little, I have to--”   
  
Jesper gave him a quick squeeze, then went for his outdoor clothes. Luckily he had brought a coat--not one suited to that, but it was only a few minutes. “I’ll go.”   
  
“No, you don’t have to, I’ll do it.”   
  
“I can’t get sick,” Jesper reminded him, “you can.” Besides, he didn’t want anything happening to those kittens, either! They were helpless, too young to look after themselves and born too early in the season.

“Can I help?”  
  
Not wanting Wylan to feel useless--and because he would like it--he added, “If we have any coffee, it would be nice to come back to a hot drink. Failing that, you could be naked in my bed.”   
  
Wylan stammered for a moment.   
  
Jesper kissed him. “Coffee would be wonderful, darling. And some warm cloths to wrap the kittens in.”   
  
Wylan leaned up to kiss his cheek. “My hero.”   
  
“I could bring my sword...”   
  
“Is that strictly practical?”   
  
It wasn’t. Jesper resolved to find another reason to use his sword that day.   
  


* * *

  
Wylan couldn’t get the idea of those kittens out of his head. Maybe the mother cat had returned, but what if she hadn’t? They were so small and helpless! And what if the mother cat returned, but she didn’t know what to do about the cold?   
  
He refused to consider the worst.    
  
He and Jesper both dressed for the day. The light seemed better suited to midnight, but the hideous grandfather clock chimed nine bells as they reached the ground floor. Like many things in the Hendriks lake house, the clock celebrated hunting. Wylan ate meat sometimes and understood where it came from, but he didn’t believe this was the same. The clock was carved with stags whose terror felt indulgent and cruel, and there was something aggressive in the way this ‘artwork’ always focused on the male animal.    
  
Hendriks men hunted. Well, this one didn’t!   
  
While Jesper braved the storm, Wylan headed first toward the rooms set aside for the household guard. He had chosen these four guards carefully--not because he anticipated danger, but because Mirte had seen nothing of her own country but the streets of Ketterdam until the Wraith put an end to the sad early chapters of her life, and still had not left the city before; because Beca was a farmer’s girl in the Wandering Isle before her powers showed and she had to flee, and she missed the countryside and needed the boost; because Thijs had been the first of his father’s hires to openly support Wylan, proving himself fickle but trustworthy while Wylan’s ship had fat sails; and because he knew perfectly well Qadan reported to Kaz Brekker, and thus had a special interest in keeping Wylan and Jesper alive. Not that he assumed Kaz employed his spies to protect his old friends. Just because their work made Inej happy, and that made Brekker happy.   
  
“Is everyone all right?” Wylan asked. “Are you warm enough?”   
  
The question was met with a round of positive responses from Mirte, Beca, and Thijs; Qadan was asleep, snoring audibly from the next room. They were not the cheeriest of accommodations, but they were well insulated.   
  
“Would anyone like coffee?”   
  
Enough people answered that Beca offered to help. Wylan ended up grateful she did. He needed her help getting the fire going in the stove.   
  
“Thank you, Beca.”   
  
“Of course,” she said with a nod. “You’re a strange one, you know.”   
  
Wylan laughed. “I do know.”   
  
She clapped her hands to her mouth, laughing. “I thought you’d be so angry that I said that! But, all the Saints, I just--you’re a strange one is all.”   
  
“I know!” he insisted. He put the pot on the stove and began slicing the spice cake. Wylan liked fine things, especially when he could spoil Jesper with them, but after his brief time in the Barrel he was more than satisfied to just have enough to eat. “Inej did warn you, didn’t she?”   
  
Wylan knew she did, because Inej always introduced any of her folks in need to Jesper and Wylan if she wanted their help finding a job--not everyone was suited for shipboard life. Maybe Inej trusted Jesper and Wylan. Maybe she knew they would keep to the righteous with her eye on them. Either way, she had introduced Beca to them.    
  
“She did that,” Beca confirmed. “What’s that for?!”   
  
The question was in reference to a large pot, a small pan, and a loaf pan. Wylan was assembling them: the loaf pan upside down, the small pan on top of it. He began packing scarves and tea towels into the second pot. It wasn’t perfect--actually, it was very far from it--but the basic concept of convection should apply. He needed the cloth warm but without the direct heat from the base of the pan that would surely burn it.   
  
He explained about the kittens. It was the best way he could think of to warm the cloth, so they had something cozy to wrap the poor things up in. When he was done explaining, Beca gave him a look that informed Wylan he had, most certainly, missed something obvious.   
  
“Mister Van Eck, sir, did you not think to hang them from the rail there?”   
  
“I…” Wylan looked for the words. Then he simply shook his head and laughed. “No,” he admitted, grabbing a few more cloths to hang from the rail. He had no idea how many he would need, but supposed in this circumstance, too many was better than not enough.   
  
“We did these for the late lambs when the neighbor’s ram got loose, he was the randiest lech you ever saw, stove in the fences twice before my da shot him--he did tell the neighbor that’s what he’d do if he found him covering our best ewes again. The ram, not the neighbor,” Beca said, then looked at Wylan, seemed to realize who she saw speaking to, and turned a quick, vibrant pink.   
  
“Well, not that you know of,” Wylan offered. “He’d have been quieter, wouldn’t he? Than the ram? I don’t know, I don’t have a lot of experience on farms.”   
  
Beca grinned. “Thank you.”   
  
“If I have any questions about the kittens, can I call on you for your expertise?”   
  
“Of course. I am at your service, Mister Van Eck.”   
  
After the coffee had brewed, Wylan and Beca took coffee and spice cake back to the other guards. Wylan returned to the kitchen. He boiled a cup of coffee with apple syrup. Deep down, no matter how much he adored him, Wylan didn’t know how Jesper could drink that.   
  
It was perfect timing: just as Wylan set aside the cup of something that technically qualified as coffee, there was a knock at the kitchen door and he unlocked it to let in a snow-dusted Jesper. His shoulders were hunched and he held his coat carefully--and just as Jesper stamped the worst of the cold from his feet, a furry head popped over his lapel and mewled.   
  


* * *

  
This was not how Jesper imagined the first full day of their little trip.   
  
He loved it anyway.   
  
Jesper taught Wylan how to test the towels against his wrists to be sure the temperature was right.    
  
“Just like that,” Jesper said, drinking his coffee. It was a bit too bitter, but Wylan had tried, and it was pretty good. He kept one arm across his middle to support the kittens.   
  
Wylan took the towel off his wrist. He undid one of the buttons on Jesper’s coat to extract a kitten while Jesper was mid-sip. The little calico mewled at the loss of warmth.   
  
“Shh, there, there,” Wylan soothed, trying to wrap the kitten in a tea towel.   
  
“Mm--Wy, you don’t need to swaddle them like a baby! Here, bring me that basket, you gorgeous little disaster.”   
  
Wylan spilled the kitten back into Jesper’s coat. He tipped over the wicker basket and thumped the bottom to knock out any dust.   
  
“Pile it all in, just two or three left out. Perfect.”   
  
He extracted the kittens carefully. Each of the four kittens mewled and stretched as they left, but they started to settle quickly enough into the basket of warm cloths. Jesper wanted to reach out and pull the last cloths over them, but he let Wylan do it, grinning as he tried to tuck the towels around the squirming kittens.    
  
“You know what’s left for you to do now, Wylan?”   
  
“What--they’ll be okay, won’t they?” he asked, that adorable worried v wrinkling up between his eyebrows as he peered at the kittens. They had mostly finished squirming. One of the black kittens was stretching its forepaws and giving a massive yawn, displaying the snowy goatee patch under his jaw..   
  
Jesper pulled Wylan close and kissed his neck. Saints, he even smelled good, this boy was deeply unfair. Watching him fuss over those kittens like they were spun glass, a part of Jesper wanted to tease--but a bigger part wanted to remember the feeling of believing the world was delicate and he could protect it.   
  
“They’ll be fine,” he promised, “but they’re going to be absolutely heartbroken if the hero of the hour doesn’t get enough attention.”   
  
“Mm, are they?”    
  
“Devastated.”   
  
“We can’t have that!”   
  
Wylan turned, not leaving Jesper’s arms, and beamed up at him. He looped his arms loosely around Jesper’s neck.   
  
“Anything,” Wylan said, “for those kittens.” But that look of glowing adoration was for Jesper alone.   
  
“You know, Wylan, I think the kittens want us to spend the rest of the afternoon having a cuddle in the sitting room.”   
  
“The rest of the afternoon? It’s not even ten bells!”   
  
Jesper kissed Wylan, and he chose to believe the mewl from a kitten was approval. “We’d better use the morning to practice.”   
  
“That’s a brilliant idea.” Wylan leaned up to return the kiss. “From a brilliant man.”   
  
They did spend the morning in the sitting room, practicing for an afternoon of cuddling. These sorts of things called for a proper warm-up. Jesper always needed something to do with his hands, and he found Wylan’s curls perfect to start with. They ringed his fingers perfectly, and smoothing them and letting them spring back occupied the twitchy part of his mind for a while. He didn’t know how Wylan could do it, lying so still with his head on Jesper’s chest, but Jesper loved it. He couldn’t be like Wylan, but he had Wylan. Right here and all his.   
  
Well… today he was sharing.   
  
“Jes, look!” Wylan gasped, raising his head and leaning forward just slightly.    
  
One of the kittens was crawling out of the basket. He hit the rug, stretched a leg out, shook his head, then stepped forward, his back high and ears perked, tail rigid. He moved awkwardly, but not unreasonably awkwardly for a little thing still learning his body.    
  
“He’s just walking, Wy.”   
  
“But… his  _ tail _ .”   
  
Jesper chuckled. “Cats have tails.”   
  
“I know.” Wylan shifted just high enough to kiss Jesper’s cheek. “Can I play with them?”   
  
He didn’t need Jesper’s permission, and being asked made Jesper a touch uncomfortable. It reminded him of how far Wylan had come in the past year, but that meant remembering how low he had been before--and Jesper still loved that boy. But he needed to be loved by him as an equal.   
  
He wrapped his arms around Wylan and held him close. Wylan was already laughing as he collapsed half on top of Jesper. Maybe more like three-quarters.   
  
“No!” Jesper said. “It’s not allowed, you’re all mine and you’re not going anywhere!”   
  
Laughing, Wylan explained, “I meant is it okay for them!”   
  
“I don’t care!” He did, and, Saints, it made him breathe easier!   
  
Wylan made a playful effort to extricate himself, but Jesper refused to release him until Wylan gave in and snuggled close.    
  
“I love you so much.”   
  
“Ooh, that was the password,” Jesper said. He released Wylan. “You can play. It won’t do them any harm.”   
  
Wylan grinned and slid to the floor. He had no knack for animal care, Jesper saw that immediately, but the kittens were too young to be frightened away by his clumsiness. Wylan was figuring out how kittens worked just as the kittens were figuring it out themselves! After a few moments, Jesper leaned forward.    
  
Living in the Barrel, he had frequented the standing floor at several of the playhouses, crammed in beside a hundred others for whatever emotional spinning wheel the playwright had in store. He loved the theater.   
  
This was the most ridiculous, adorable show he had ever heard of… and he had a front row seat.


End file.
